Thoughts on politics, law, culture and guns from an eclectic, but mainly center-right point of view

Thursday, January 24, 2013

If Looks Could Kill

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) announced two days late her bill for banning mean looking guns. I hope that the proposed infringements on our 2nd Amendment rights (and God given right to defend ourselves) are given the same standard of review that the First Amendment gets, namely, strict scrutiny. However, even if it's rational relationship (the least difficult standard for the governement to survive judicial review of a law), I'm not sure this bill would pass muster. Here's an example. The Ruger Mini 14 and Ranch Rifle are not banned by name, but the exact same working mechanism in a mean looking (black plastic) stock, the Mini-14 Tactical Rifle M-14/20CF is banned by name. The non-mean looking Mini 14 and the Tactical version put out the same round at the same speed and rate of fire from the same sizes of magazine (5 rounds to 40). They are identically capable of killing. Yet one is banned and the other is not, purely on cosmetics. How are cosmetics rationally related to the purported reason for the ban, that is, to save lives? It is not rationally related to that.

The silver lining is that this might merely be Kabuki theater for a bill that will not pass either house. That's a silver lining in a very dark cloud for freedom and the constitution.